Transcript from our video blog on emotions and CFS/ME. Click here to view the video.Alex: Hi, I’m Alex Howard and I’m here with Anna Duschinsky, Director of Psychology at The Optimum Health Clinic.Anna: Hi.Alex: Welcome to this short video. We’re going to be talking today about The Optimum Health Clinic’s way of working with emotions in ME, Chronic Fatigue (CFS), Fibromyalgia, really that group of illnesses. So Anna, maybe as a starting point, emotions in ME and Chronic fatigue (CFS), there’s a lot we can be saying about the actual biochemistry and so on, but we not going to go into detail in this video, as we’ve covered that in a lot detail in other places, but just very briefly, why are emotions important?Anna: Ok, so I would put it two ways: the first is that if you think about the process of getting ill, what you’ve had to do is become quite disconnected from your emotions and your body. So in order to get to the point where we get that ill, normally what’s happened is we’ve ignored all the signs that we weren’t happy in certain situations, that we shouldn’t have taken that job, that we were getting sick more and more, so we’ve ignored all of those signs through time that we’ve been going up to crashing, and then we crash. By that point usually we’ve got quite disconnected emotionally. So one of the ways it’s quite useful to think about emotions within Chronic Fatigue is part of this process of getting better is trying to rebalance that imbalance that’s been created, so that’s one way of looking at it. The other is the actual biochemistry of the impact that emotions and stuck emotions or unprocessed emotions have on your physical body and your physical health, and even in the development of symptoms. So that’s why emotion has a role and of course then there’s a whole other area of how you’re feeling about your body, about your illness and all the frustration and fear that goes with that as well. Alex: Yes, and I know there are certain treatment programmes on the psychology side, things like for example Reverse Therapy, Mickel Therapy and that kind of thing where they effectively say that it’s all about the emotions and I know that for a subgroup of patients that can be effective. What’s your perspective on that?Anna: I think that it is an interesting take on it. I know for myself in my own recovery, understanding my emotions and where I hadn’t listened to them was significant, but it’s like everything we say, it’s never one size fits all. So do I think it’s relevant and useful and part of the picture, absolutely, but I think the thing that limits that as an approach is the implication that all of our symptoms are just down to unmet needs and unlistened to emotions, and I don’t see that being consistently true because of course you’ve got the whole role of stress and anxiety as well. If you have massive anxiety and massive stress and fear running as part of your CFS or ME, it’s very difficult to connect to your emotions and know what you’re feeling, so that’s a whole side of things that needs to be dealt with in order to help yourself reconnect and rebalance. The other thing that isn’t really being dealt with from this single approach is any of the nutritional or physical side of treatment. So working emotions in that was is a part of it. But personally I think it will massively depend on the person as to how significant and relevant a piece of recovery it is. Alex: And I know that also people can get very caught up in doing lots of psychotherapy and deep exploration of their feelings, their emotions and their history on their path to recovery from chronic fatigue syndrome, how do you see that impacting on it?Anna: Ok, again I think some people think that in order to get better from CFS they have to therefore have dealt with everything that’s ever happened to them emotionally; again I really do not believe that, I quite strongly don’t believe that. Having seen so many people with ME and CFS through the years, what I think is probably relevant for a lot of people is having some awareness, being able to connect in, being able to understand they have emotions and needs is very important, but you don’t have to have dealt with all of your history to get better, for the most part. However, there will be people where... and this is particularly where we talk about trauma within chronic fatigue and ME; if there’s been a lot of trauma in the body, it’s almost stuck in that state, then sometimes there is work that needs to be done to undo that, to get you to the point where you can fully heal, so it really is again based upon the individual as to what is going to be most relevant and where and how.Alex: I think it’s a very useful and helpful thing to be on a kind of internal path of discovery and on my recovery path I was constantly reading books around psychology and various forms of therapy, and I was using stuff with myself, but there was something really missing in having a really skilled insightful practitioner, so I’m wondering... I know there are certain treatment programmes that are kind of self-treatment programmes, and what your thoughts are about the importance of a practitioner that’s skilled in this area for recovery from ME and CFS? Anna: Well I think if you look at what we’re saying today about emotions, we’re saying that for some people there’s a particular route that needs to happen, there are particular things that need to be dealt with, for other people it will be far more about calming down the nervous system, dealing with stress, dealing with the kind of nutritional aspects of it. We’ve always said that CFS and ME are not one illness, there are so many facets to this, so many pictures within this and subgroups within this, so I think the problem is that it’s quite hard to know for yourself where you fit within that, and for a lot of people that can be very frustrating. I suppose what we always feel like is the most important thing, and we’ve only learnt through the really hard experience of doing it and doing it and doing it is helping people to identify where they fit and what they need. So for some people, perhaps they do need to go into psychotherapy and really start to look at that stuff, for some people they need to just learn to calm everything down and not delve too much at the moment until they’ve got some stability, so it really varies and I can’t over estimate the role of having that roadmap of saying ‘this is where you are, this is what you need to do at this point in time that’s going to make the biggest difference,’ because also... you kind of touched on this, understanding your emotions or understanding what’s gone on isn’t the same as recovery from ME and CFS. So for a lot of people they really intellectually or even emotionally understand what’s happened, but it hasn’t shifted the physicality of what’s going on in their illness, and from our point of view that’s the most important thing. You can be emotionally very literate, but still not actually be well. We want you to be well.Alex: Well I guess there are almost two potential paths here for people: there’s the path of their own ongoing psychotherapeutic development, and there’s also the path of recovery from ME and CFS. They are linked, but they’re not the same path?Anna: Not necessarily.Alex: And, of course, the stronger you are, the more recovered you are, the more resource you have to work with your historical stuff if you want to do that in your life anyway.Anna: Exactly that. My thinking around it is always you need to get better and resourceful and healthy in order to then potentially deal with... Alex: So for someone that’s watching this, I guess the next step would really be that if they’re not a patient, a free 15 minute chat’s a great way to speak to a practitioner, give them a bit of your history and they can help identify the roadmap that’s going to work to moving forwards.(You can book a free 15 minute chat at https://www.theoptimumhealthclinic.com/15minchats.html )Anna: Exactly that, exactly.Alex: And obviously if anyone’s already a patient, this is something that the practitioner will already be very much taking into account.Anna: Yes, definitely. Alex: Ok, well thank you Anna.Anna: No problem.Alex: And thank you everyone for watching. Anna: Thanks.